Total Pageviews

Friday, 20 March 2015

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD * : Escape From Slavery

The_Underground_Railroad_by_Charles_T._Webber,_1893

Thousands of people sought to aid slaves. The varied lot
included former slaves, freeborn blacks, white reformers, and clergy. Some
whites championed gradual emancipation, others a return to Africa or freedom
without citizenship;few approved social integration.

JERMAIN LOGUEN (ca
1813-1872) “No day dawns for the slaves, nor is it looked for. It is all
night-night forever,”said the fugitive, son of his tennessee master and a slave
woman. Underground agent and ordained minister, he helped 1500 escapees and started
black schools in New York State.

LUCRETIA COFFIN MOTT
(1793-1880) A well educated Quaker wife and mother, she preached eloquently
for abolition, women’s rights, and temperance. She stood with William Garrison
for immediate emancipation.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS (ca
1817-1895) A fugitive slave , Douglass became a skilled abolitionist
speaker, praised for “wit, argument, sarcasm, and pathos”.He urged blacks to pursue vocational
education and the vote; his print shop in Rochester, New York, was a depot on the
underground.

JOHN GREENLEAF
WHITTIER (1807-1892) Remembered for bucolic verse, the Quaker poet gave
powerful voice to the abolition movement. He early joined The Republican Party,
founded partly to halt the spread of slavery.

ALLAN PINKERTON
(1819-1884) before founding a detective agency, this scottish immigrant
managed underground depot at his cooper’s shop near Chicago.

JOSIAH HENSON
(1789-1883) So trustworthy a slave that his owner made him an overseer,
Henson, while transporting slaves to Kentucky, resisted others’ efforts to free
them all. Harriet Beecher Stowe attributed a similar episode to Uncle Tom in
her novel. Henson eventually escaped to Canada, led others to safety, and
traveled as abolitionist and businessman .

THOMAS GARRETT
(1789-1871) “Among the manliest of men, and the gentlest of spirits”, wrote
William Lloyd Garrison about the Wilmington businessman who aided more than
2,700 slaves to freedom.

MARY ANN SHADD
(1823-1893) Daughter of a black agent in the Wilmington underground, the
Quaker-educated teacher moved to Canada, where as a writer and editor she
preached permanent emigration from the States.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
(1805-1879) One of the earliest, most vitriolic abolitionists, he devoted
full time to the cause, speaking against slavery and the Constitution that
permitted it. By 1841 he was calling upon the North to secede.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY
(1820-1906) Raised to be self-supporting by a Quaker father, the teacher
spoke out for temperance, women’s rights and abolition, despite vehement
prejudice against women in public affairs. Later she led the fight for women’s
suffrage.

JONATHAN WALKER (1799-1878)
Imprisoned for helping seven slaves sail from Florida bound for the
Bahamas, he was branded on the hand with SS for “Slave Stealer”. After release
he became a “conspicuous witness against slave power” for the abolitionists.

WILLIAM STILL
(1821-1902) Indefatigable worker in the Philadelphia underground, Still
kept rare day-to-day records, which were published in 1872. A successful coal
merchant, he continued to campaign against discrimination.

(National Geographic,
Vol 166, No 1, July 1984)

*UNDERGROUND RAILROADis a vast informal network of
activists-black and white- who aided escaping slaves in the decades before the
civil War.